


Wildflowers

by astrangerenters



Category: Disney Princesses
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1920s, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-22
Updated: 2011-12-22
Packaged: 2017-10-27 18:01:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/298516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astrangerenters/pseuds/astrangerenters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first words Miss DeVil said when she arrived at The Garden were ones she'd never forget: a flower, once plucked, must die.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wildflowers

**Author's Note:**

  * For [furloughday](https://archiveofourown.org/users/furloughday/gifts).



> I think 1920s is the best approximation, so I hope that's a modern-enough timeframe for you! Have a lovely holiday! I hope you'll enjoy it, furloughday!

The first words Miss DeVil said when she arrived at The Garden were ones she'd never forget: a flower, once plucked, must die.

She had been six years old then, and the ride in Mr. Perrault's motorcar had been long and cold. Her godmother had never liked her, and she'd never known why. One day she'd been in school with her friends, the next her godmother had said that she was to go with Mr. Perrault.

Mr. Perrault hadn't said a word, no matter how much she had begged and cried. Even now in her seventeenth year she could still remember the slippery feel of the leather seats of his motorcar, the ashtray full of cigarette butts, and the hardened look in his eyes. Mr. Perrault had been her godmother's friend, and she'd lived with them after her parents had died just before the War - now in her seventeenth year she understood their "friendship" far better. There'd really been no place for her.

The sun had only just risen when the car pulled up the gravel drive, the chateau with its stately lawns and manicured hedges greeting her after an exhausting, confusing night. Mr. Perrault had roughly tugged her out of the car, depositing her suitcases with one of the butlers as Miss DeVil approached. She'd smelled of cigarettes and was wrapped in furs.

"A flower, once plucked, must die," Miss DeVil had said. "But until then they must be cared for. I raise many types of flowers here. Do you like flowers?"

She'd nodded, and only because she hadn't known that it would have been best to turn around and run the other way.

\--

Her name had been something else, but in The Garden her name was Aurora because she'd arrived at dawn, frightened and alone. Miss DeVil named every flower in her garden, and the names they'd had before were to be forgotten or whipped out of you. She didn't much care for whippings, so Aurora she had easily become.

And it had been rather easy to become Aurora. The Garden was full of girls of varying ages, every one obedient but kind. The Garden was a beautiful house of blood red brick, sumptuously decorated over every inch of its three stories. It boasted classrooms for lessons, parlors for sewing and conversation, and a dining room with an electric-powered chandelier.

Aurora's new home upon first glance was so much better than living with her godmother had been. The other girls were nice to her, her lessons were fun, and she had a large, beautiful bedroom all to herself with a four poster bed she nearly had to be boosted into until she grew taller. She had the finest clothes - silk stockings and dresses in every color of the rainbow. Aurora learned that the "sponsors" were the ones responsible for their lives of luxury.

After lessons every day, each girl was responsible for writing a letter to the sponsors, thanking them for their kindness and generosity. As a girl of six, then seven, then eight and so on, Aurora dutifully wrote her letters like the other girls did. Because the sponsors put clothes on her back and rich, sugary shortcakes and other sweets in her belly. And in time, the sponsors brought them out.

She hadn't known much about that at first, only knowing that girls left The Garden on their eighteenth birthdays with a lavish going away party and lots of tears and sad farewells. Most girls speculated that they went off to be married. For why else were they trained to sew and bake cakes and do sums if not to manage a household?

It was only when she befriended Ariel that she learned about The Garden's true nature, about what it meant for them to be Miss DeVil's flowers. Ariel had always been so curious, and she sometimes earned more whippings in a day than Aurora had in all the time she'd lived in The Garden. Miss DeVil let them eat sweets until they got toothaches, let them read any books in the library, and let them dance to the best records the Victrola could play.

They were all sleeping, Aurora soon realized. Miss DeVil's sleeping beauties, unaware of the futures that awaited them.

When they were fourteen, Ariel managed to sneak away at night, overhearing a negotiation in Miss DeVil's office between her and a sponsor. She told Aurora the truth that had been kept from them all, and within days, Ariel's going away party was scheduled. And oh how sad, the other girls had said at the time. How sad it was that Ariel was leaving. But how fortunate, they'd said soon after. Her prince had come for her early, that had to be it. He simply couldn't wait. Her prince had come to take her away for her happily ever after.

Aurora had watched then, had met Ariel's eyes as she headed out the door to the Rolls Royce that would drive her away from The Garden to where her prince awaited. She knew then that Ariel was not being rescued. She was a flower that had just been plucked. And all plucked flowers, Aurora knew, must die.

\--

Miss DeVil introduced Ella to everyone soon after Aurora turned seventeen. Ella herself was sixteen, a quiet blonde who couldn't meet anyone's eyes. "A late bloomer!" Miss DeVil had declared, and all the assembled girls laughed and fussed over the new arrival, dragging her around the estate to show off the gardens and libraries and kitchens.

Aurora didn't laugh.

Ella had been placed in the room adjoining hers, a room that had been unoccupied since Snow White's eighteenth birthday and immediate departure a few months prior. She had never told Snow White what awaited her upon leaving The Garden. She had been a sweet girl, kind and beautiful with porcelain skin. Her eighteenth birthday was something she'd looked forward to as long as Aurora had known her. All the girls at The Garden looked forward to the day a motorcar would whisk them away.

They were content with their dreams, but Aurora didn't want to sleep ever again.

Aurora wanted to tell Ella the truth. There was something about Ella that drew Aurora's interest. Even as the girls lavished her with attention, she said next to nothing. She ate very little, shyly declining cream puffs and rich puddings that the other girls ate with abandon. Aurora could hear Ella crying in the next room every night.

She finally waited until the middle of the night to formally introduce herself, knocking on the other girl's door. She found Ella not in the four poster bed with its warm quilt and satin sheets, but on the floor, scrubbing at the wood with a brush.

"What are you doing?" Aurora asked, crouching down beside the other girl in her nightdress. Ella's nails were broken and bleeding, and Aurora wondered how long she'd been cleaning. "They have people that clean the rooms here."

"My stepmother liked a clean house," Ella said, her voice almost as quiet as a mouse. "I am sorry if I woke you."

"You didn't."

The girl looked up. She didn't have the healthy, rosy cheeks the other girls had. Ella had dark circles under her gray eyes, and her hair hung limply around her shoulders, as though the effort to keep it curled wasn't of interest to her. Ella was beautiful, or more like she had been, but since arriving at The Garden, she hadn't taken much interest in herself.

"They'll whip you for looking sloppy," Aurora warned her, easing the scrub brush from her companion's thin fingers. "It's an unspoken rule. Miss DeVil wishes for her flowers to be healthy."

"I was happy with cleaning," Ella mumbled. "I would have cleaned until my hands came off. But sending me here...I...I never asked to be sent here. My stepmother just didn't want another mouth to feed."

Aurora sat back on the floor, leaning against the bed. "The Garden is a beautiful place. We have everything here."

Ella's voice grew lower still. "You must not know what this place really is."

Ella knew. How could she have known? But in that instant, the reason for Ella's sadness was obvious. Most girls came to The Garden at a young age like Aurora had. Most girls were more than happy to wear pretty clothes and practice dancing because one day their prince would come, and they had to be ready for him. Most girls at The Garden were as asleep as Aurora once had been.

But Ella was already sixteen. Ella was two years away from the real prince that would come to take her away. And even if most of the girls at The Garden didn't know just what kind of flowers they were, it seemed like Ella did. There'd been no one since Ariel, no one who understood just what Miss DeVil was letting them all live so freely for.

Ariel had told her that night when they were fourteen, hidden under Aurora's sheets. "We're sold," Ariel had said. "Miss DeVil sells us to the highest bidder. We're not wed to them. We're just a prize. We're a specialty, the flowers in full bloom. And once they've plucked the flower from the vine, there's no use for them after. They pay for one night, and that's all."

"And then?" Aurora had asked, so ignorant. So naive. "And then what?"

Ariel had squeezed her hand. "A flower, once plucked, must die."

Aurora stood up, feeling dizzy at the thought of someone else understanding. "I...I do know what this place is. None of the other girls know, but I do."

Ella's sad eyes traced over her face. "Then why do you bother? Why do you eat the food and write the thank you letters? Why do you sleep under those covers every night when you know what's going to happen? They even took our names away."

Aurora had known about The Garden's true nature, had kept what Ariel had told her secret for three long, terrible years as other girls came and went with smiles on their faces. She knew that in less than a year, her time would come. She'd be plucked and discarded.

And what had she done about it?

She'd done nothing. She'd been too frightened, too complacent.

Ella grabbed the scrub brush back from where Aurora had left it, running it along the floor at a frenzied pace, tears running down her cheeks.

\--

As the weeks passed, the other girls started to whisper about Ella, about her lack of interest in dancing, her half-hearted conversations in the parlor. "No prince will come for her," the girls said, and Aurora couldn't bear to let the girl be.

She finally pulled Ella aside one night after dinner, dragging her to one of the music rooms off of the main hall. She sat the girl down beside her on the piano bench. "Just play. Even if you have no talent, just play."

Ella gave in, her fingers ghosting gently over the keys.

"I'm going to be eighteen in nine months," Aurora told her. Ella concentrated on her playing, and the music coming from the room would be enough to keep Miss DeVil or the other staff from interrupting them. "I'm going to be eighteen, and I don't want to die."

Ella's playing faltered slightly, but she quickly corrected herself as Aurora turned the page of the music book.

"We're going to be the best behaved girls," Aurora decided. "And I'll help you. If we're happy, they won't suspect."

"And then?" Ella asked, their hands nearly touching as they played the cheerful tune.

She thought of Ariel, wondered what had become of her. She'd been taken to bed, and then what? Had the sponsor slit her throat? Pushed a pillow over her nose and mouth? Run her down with the Rolls Royce? She wouldn't dare let what happened to Ariel happen to Ella. Ella was her second chance.

"And then we run away. You and me, Ella."

She saw the slightest smile on Ella's lips. "My name isn't Ella. My name is Nora."

"My name isn't Aurora. My name is Rose."

Ella grinned. "Though I suppose we'll have to keep that a secret, too." She laughed for the first time. "Let's be one another's princes, then, shall we?"

\--

Ella had been forced to wear the same clothes for years in her stepmother's home, but she'd had two stepsisters who wore the newest styles and patterns. It made her an excellent judge of fabric, and she used her kind, unobtrusive manner to talk the ladies' maids into ordering the pair of them lovely dresses in the latest fashions. While the other girls resembled layer cakes with their corsets and petticoats, the pair of them seemed to float through the halls of The Garden in their chiffon and lace shifts that hugged their frames.

They asked for the newest records for the Victrola, asking the sponsors to send dance teachers who knew more modern styles. They shunned petit fours at tea time and girlish stories in favor of wearing bloomers for bike rides through the gardens and smoking cigarettes with holders just like Miss DeVil's. The sponsors seemed to eat it all up, praising and urging them on in their youthful enthusiasm. All the other girls in the house wanted to be like them, and even if it was less formal than The Garden had once been, the pair of them had become the top influencers and were highly likely to have the attention of all the sponsors, and thus, Miss DeVil could find no way to fault them.

The bike rides through the garden served as reconnaissance. The Garden was surrounded by a forest of thick, gnarled trees on all sides, a place that had seemed terrifying as a child. Only the prince who'd come for them would be able to navigate the way back out. But the forest wasn't as scary as all that, Aurora discovered. It was a haven, and she and Ella giggled under the bed covers late into the night at the thought of slipping out one evening and vanishing into the woods without a trace.

But it wasn't time yet - the closer Aurora's birthday came, the more whispering and speculation there'd be around the house. Which prince would come to call for Aurora? Surely all of the excitement had started a bidding war, and what better way to rebel and defeat the woman who would sell them than to defect and run away at the height of Miss DeVil's seeming triumph?

Ella and Aurora were the fairest of them all by day, the rarest and loveliest flowers on the vine. But by nightfall they were simply Nora and Rose, two girls who realized that if they wanted to live past their eighteenth birthday that matters had to be taken into their own hands.

Having one another was all the motivation they needed. Aurora had lived in fear, but now she lived with hope in her heart. The promise of freedom awaited, and as the days went on in the company of Ella, she realized that she couldn't picture a future at all if Ella wasn't at her side.

\--

Her birthday was a week away, and Miss DeVil brought Aurora into her private parlor. She lit a cigarette, gesturing toward a graying man in a bespoke suit. His smile was something that would send any of the girls in The Garden screaming in joy, but Aurora could see that it didn't reach his eyes.

"Mr. Phillip Merryweather," Miss DeVil said, making the introductions. "Aurora, dear, Mr. Merryweather has taken an interest in you. Might you be persuaded to join him for dinner after your party next week?"

Mr. Merryweather kissed her hand. His lips were cold as ice and his eyes colder still. He had to be three times older than she was, though that seemed to be a normal trend among the sponsors. "It would be a pleasure to get to know you better."

She inclined her head and smiled the simple girlish smile of any of the dreamers in The Garden. "It would also be my pleasure."

After small talk and brandy, Aurora was excused for there was much to be done. There were cakes to be chosen for her going away party and gowns to be fitted and decorations to be thought of. It was easy to go through the motions, but it wasn't easy to lie in bed that night knowing that her life could very well end in a week if she and Ella did not succeed.

Lighting her candle, she found Ella curled up in her usual spot on the floor of her room, the bed unoccupied. She set the candle down on the bedside table and moved over to Ella's side. Her fingers brushed the other girl's soft skin, and Ella's cheek was warm to the touch where every bit of Mr. Merryweather had chilled her to the bone.

"I am to be matched with Mr. Merryweather, one of the sponsors," she whispered as Ella roused from her strange slumber.

The other girl sat up on the rug, rubbing her eyes as she woke. "So that's where you were all evening."

Aurora was almost vibrating with her excitement and fear. "There's going to be a party. I wonder if I'll be able to slip away. I'll be the center of attention."

"Because you're old," Ella teased, lacing their fingers together in a joking squeeze. "But I'm not so old as you. Leave it to me to get things started. And then I'll rescue you from Mr. Merryweather. I'll rescue all of us, just as you've rescued me."

Aurora blushed. "I've done nothing of the sort..."

"...but you have," Ella insisted. "I'd have let Miss DeVil win, but with you, I feel like we're going to get away. I'd never be this confident if not for you."

Aurora pulled her hand back, getting to her feet. "Do you want to know what Mr. Merryweather was like? In the meeting in the parlor?"

Ella shivered, standing up. The pair of them moved to the bed, sitting down on top of the quilt. "Was he handsome?"

She shook her head. "No, not really."

"Did he kiss you?"

Aurora met Ella's soft gray eyes. "Only on my hand." She lifted Ella's in her own. Where it had been rough when they'd met, now it was just as soft and gentle as her own. Part of their expected roles as such delicate little flowers. She couldn't resist pressing her lips to Ella's knuckles.

"Just like that?" Ella whispered.

"Just like that." She smiled, not letting go of Ella's hand. "I guess you could say I'm bought and paid for."

"I'm sure you fetched a good price."

"Maybe," Aurora replied. "But he doesn't hold a candle to my real prince."

She wasn't sure which of them moved first, but she found Ella's soft mouth, pressing a quick kiss to her lips. Aurora definitely wouldn't allow her faulty prince to be the first to steal a kiss. Ella was warm, so warm and perfect. She decided to continue, feeling Ella's lips part willingly when she kissed her again. She tasted sweet, like the after dinner cordials they often drank with dessert. Surely Mr. Merryweather couldn't taste like this.

Ella's thin fingers twisted themselves in the sash holding Aurora's dressing gown closed, unraveling the knot. Aurora couldn't help but sigh at Ella's touch, the thin cotton of her chemise all that stood between Ella's skin and her own.

When she finally caught her breath and leaned back, Ella hadn't yet opened her eyes. Even with the shadows the candlelight cast across the room, Aurora could see that Ella was everything she wanted. And everything she needed.

"We'll get through this week, and then we'll get through the rest," Aurora vowed.

Ella leaned back against the pillows, her soft blonde curls fanning out around her as she held out her hand. "We'll get through the rest, no problem. So long as we're together."

\--

The fire started in the kitchens during Aurora's going away party. As Miss DeVil and the sponsors in attendance panicked and the Garden staff hurried about with buckets of water, none of Miss DeVil's sleeping beauties seemed to be afraid. Because they weren't dreaming any longer. Such was the influence of the two prettiest flowers in The Garden. It had been easy to coerce the girls to follow them out of the mansion - all they'd had to do was promise to lead them to their princes.

Of course, the other girls wouldn't realize it was a trick until they were far away, and by that time, Ella and Aurora would explain that the forest and the lands beyond weren't as frightening as they'd always seemed. That The Garden was not what it purported to be. That nobody was coming to save them. Each girl would become her own prince, her own knight in shining armor.

They were no longer Ella and Aurora, Belle and Rapunzel. They were Nora and Rose, Jenny and Susan. There were probably no lemon bars and Victrolas where they were going, no embroidery patterns or beaded lace gowns. They herded the girls into the depths of the forest, and the flames rose high in the distance.

They'd all become wildflowers, Rose thought, as she picked some ash and cinders from Nora's hair that came floating by on the wind as the chateau burned away. They wouldn't be cultivated, wouldn't be overly tended, and they'd never be plucked.

Wildflowers, after all, could grow anywhere they chose. They'd spread far and wide, and they'd never ever die.


End file.
